MS Office WORD

Some of the most relevant aspects to take into account to create accessible documents in Word are the following. Language. The first thing to consider is the language of the text to be included in the document. This practice benefits immersive readers for improving the pronunciation of the text. In addition, the software used will be allowed the function of automatic spelling correction. To indicate the language of the text, you must select or click on the location of the text and go to the top menu and click on “Review”. Then, in the “Language” block, select “Set correction language”. More information: Check spelling and grammar in another language with Microsoft Word Typography. List of the most suitable: Sans Serif: Calibri, Century Gothic, Tahoma, Verdana (excluding Arial and Helvetica because they pose differentiation problems between the “i”, the “l” and the number 1). These font families are recommended for screen reading (due to the different qualities and definition of the screens). -Serif: Times New Roman, Georgia. These font families are recommended for reading on paper. -Slab serif: Arvo, Slab Museum, Rockwell. These font families are recommended when creating section titles. However, if you want to choose another type of typography, it is recommended to follow the following guidelines. Other aspects of consideration regarding the type of letter chosen:

• Prominent ascending and descending lines (for example, in the case of ascenders, the vertical line of the letter “d” and in the case of descenders, the vertical line of the letter “y”).
• The combination of letters d/b and p/q must not be a mirror of each other. • The capital letter “i”, lower case “l” and the number 1 must be clearly distinguishable.
• The space between letters cannot be very narrow.
• The “Kerning” (defined as the raised part that has the shape of the letter) is important since letters like “r” and “n”, in words like “modern” could be changed to “modem”.
• Regarding the size of the font, it is recommended that at least it have a minimum size of 12px, although it will depend on the type of font chosen, becoming recommended, in some situations, a size of 14px. the size of the font it should not suffer multiple variations throughout the content of a document.
• The use of design variations such as italics, bold or capital letters should be limited, since they negatively influence reading. The inclination of the letters in italics makes it difficult to read, the thickness of the text must be normal or 5 semi-bold (better than bold) and the use of capital letters must be reduced at the beginning of words such as names, beginning of paragraph or titles.
• Regarding the alignment of the texts, justified text makes reading difficult because spaces are generated between words so that the lines are aligned on the edges. These spaces interrupt reading and can even cause unintentional line breaks. Therefore, it is recommended to align the texts on the left edge of the document. In general, it is considered that the optimal number of characters per line should be between 45 and 75 and allowing justification in the event that there are at least 50 characters per line to be readable.

Colour and contrast. In the case of people with colour blindness, reduced vision or even total loss of vision, the choice of text colour is very important for the accessibility of the document. The colour of the background on which the content is written should be taken into account. For example, writing on this document in a light grey would not look as good as if you chose a darker grey. In addition, it must be taken into account that the document can be read on different screens with different levels of light, therefore, it must be noted that a good contrast will avoid visualisation problems. You can check the contrast ratio of text colours online from Contrast Checker or by downloading Colour Contrast Analyser 6 Cover and headers. When including a cover page in your document, keep in mind that the main templates offered by Word are not fully accessible. However, you can find other templates that are. Entering from Get accessible templates or directly from Collection of accessible Office templates you can get templates for the different Office 365 applications. Within Word, in the top menu, in the “Insert” tab, go to “Cover” and select a cover among all those offered by Word. We must bear in mind that not all covers are fully accessible and when fixing those accessibility problems, the distribution of our cover may be misplaced. For this, simple tables are used, although it is not recommended because the true function of a table is to collect data. However, by using the tables, it will allow us to maintain the layout of our cover. It must be taken into account that the tables must be as simple as possible so that an immersive reader can read them without difficulty. For example, if the “Ion (clear)” template is chosen and its accessibility is checked, objects not aligned to the text will appear as a warning. If you want to keep the cover structure, one of the easiest ways is to include the objects inside a table from which different cell sizes can be given. Before moving the objects within their respective table cells, they must be brought “in line with the text”. To do this, by selecting the object to be aligned, the “Design options” option appears, in which “In line with the text” should be marked. When performed on the two objects on this cover, you can see that both have been placed on the left margin of the document, one after the other. Next, a two-row, two-column table is inserted into which both objects must be entered. Subsequently, the objects are placed inside the table. To hide the table, place the pointer over one of the borders and, clicking on the right button, select the “Borders” option and then the “No borders” option. In this way, the errors of the objects disappear, but there will be two new accessibility errors of the table indicating that alternative text is missing and defining the header row. This will be explained in the “Tables” point. Regarding the headers and footers, the same procedure must be followed as when inserting a table when you want to add images or text in a custom location. It must be taken into account that the table that we include must be as simple as possible and that it can be read in order. Glossary. A glossary makes it easier for people with some difficulty understanding the text (people who are deaf or people with cognitive impairment) or anyone unfamiliar with the subject. It is recommended to add a glossary of terms to the document and structure it in list format where you must indicate all the words that may entail a certain difficulty. Boards. If you want to insert a table in the document, you must take into account the possibility that it will be read by a screen reader or by the “immersive reader” mode offered by Word. First of all, the tables are read by rows, so it is necessary to take into account the placement of the cells common to a subject, by columns. Once the table has been created, its ease of navigation must be checked, as previously mentioned. You have to place the pointer in the first cell and go tabulating (TAB key) through the table. It must be verified that the cells follow a reading order from left to right and from top to bottom and that there are no jumps due to vertically merged cells or multiple cells within the same cell. In the case of having a cell divided into several sections in a row, both cells must be selected and with a right click of the mouse select the option “combine cells” to facilitate reading for the screen reader. The first row of the table should be the header. One way to do this would be to select the header row and in the top menu, go to the “Layout” tab. Once inside, go to the “Data” section and select “Repeat title rows. Another way to do it would be to select the entire row and right-click on it, select the “Table Properties” option. Once inside “Table properties”, go to the “Row” tab and, in the options that are displayed, uncheck “Allow dividing rows between pages” and check the option “Repeat as header row on each page”. Next, you have to go to the “Alternative Text” tab and include a title and description about the data that the table includes. Images. An image is usually the most visual means of explaining a concept. When including images in a document, it must be taken into account that there are people who cannot see the images and need the help of support products that describe them. In order for them to do so, you must enter a title and descriptive text for each of the images added. Alternative text should be able to replace the function that the image performs within the content. That is, the reader of the document must be able to understand the context of the image, listening to that text instead of seeing the image. Once an image is inserted in the document, you have to right click on it and click on the option “Edit alternative text”. Word will open a right panel called “Alternative Text” where you must include some text that describes the image for a blind person. It must be taken into account that, for a person with visual difficulties, a title and a description according to what is shown in the image will be of great help. Hyperlinks. When including links or hyperlinks in the document, it must be taken into account that they are well defined and clearly specify the destination to which it leads. When faced with a URL such as https://www.COCEMFE.es, the difficulty that a screen reader has because it is a short link may not be appreciated. However, if the URL is long, occupying several lines of the document, the screen reader will read the letters or words that make up the link one by one, complicating the comprehension of its reading. To create a hyperlink correctly, a descriptive text of the hyperlink must be generated. Once the text is created, select it and right click on it and select the “Link” option. At the top of the window that appears, there is the “Text” box with the full URL. Next, you select the URL and type a title that specifies the web address to which the hyperlink leads. Mathematical formulas. In the event that mathematical formulas need to be included in the document, they should not be included as an image but as mathematical text. Most text editors allow you to include mathematical content. To add a formula using Microsoft Word, go to the top menu and click on “Insert”. In the blocks, click on the “Equation” block and indicate the type of mathematical equation that you want to insert. Accessibility check. If you want to check if the structure of the document meets the minimum requirements for it to be accessible, you can use the Office 365 Word tool. To check the accessibility of the document, the “Review” tab appears in the top menu of Word. Among the blocks that appear, select “Check accessibility”. This option generates a block, to the right of the document, with the list of accessibility problems in the document structure. If a problem appears in the results, clicking on it. The reason for the error and how to solve it is explained at the bottom of the results. NOTE: It is recommended to keep the option “Keep the accessibility checker running while I work” active to check the accessibility of the document as it is generated. Transfer the document to pdf. Once the Word document is finalised and the accessibility errors in the document structure checked, it can be converted to PDF format. To do this, from Word, access “File” and in the left menu, on “Save as”. Next, you must select the location where you want to save the document in PDF format. Once the location has been selected, if we click on “More options”, a pop-up window will appear, in which the following information will be filled in:

• File name: Name of the PDF file (it is not necessary to include the .pdf extension).
• Type: Select “PDF (*.pdf).
• Authors: Include the authors of the document.
• Tags: Add keywords related to the content of the document, separated by semicolons“;”.
• Title: Write the title of the document (it can be different from the name of the file).

In the “Options” button, check that the boxes “Document structure tags for accessibility” and “Create bookmarks using: Titles” are checked. Filling in this series of data favours the indexing of the document, either at the level of a personal computer or for the Internet. The rest of the options can be left as they appear by default. Once all the data has been filled in, you must click on the “Save” button to generate the document in PDF format. NOTE: If you use the Adobe Acrobat program, it is recommended to check the accessibility of the document to correct errors during conversion to PDF format